Sinope in 218 B.C.

Sinope — Spring 218 BC · The Free City of the Euxine.

Sinope — the greatest of the Greek cities upon the Pontic sea, a colony of Miletus set on a peninsula that juts from the Paphlagonian coast, its neck so narrow that the city closes it from shore to shore and holds two harbours, one to either side. Grown rich on the tunny that swarm its waters, on the timber of the Pontic hills that builds its ships, and on the red ochre — the Sinopic earth — dug in its territory, it is itself the mother-city of further colonies down the coast: Trapezus, Cerasus and Cotyora, which pay it dues as their metropolis. It is the birthplace of Diogenes the dog-philosopher. A free and well-walled republic in 218 BC, Sinope keeps its independence — but the kings of Pontus eye its harbours hungrily, and not long since Mithridates threatened it with war, beaten back only by the aid of Rhodes.

On the right-hand shore of the Pontus, as a ship sails toward Phasis, a peninsula thrusts out from the Paphlagonian coast; and where its neck draws in to barely two stades, the Sinopeans have built their city wall to wall across the isthmus, sealing the land from sea to sea. So set, Sinope is at once the best harbour and the strongest fortress of all the Greek towns of the Euxine — easily held by a moderate guard, hard to come at by land or water. From its quays go out the tunny of its fisheries, the red Sinopic earth dug in its hills, and the ships its yards build from Pontic timber; and to it look its own daughter-colonies strung eastward along the coast. Yet wealth and a fine harbour draw envious eyes. The house of Pontus reaches always toward the sea, and within living memory Mithridates declared war on the city — turned back only when Rhodes sent gold and engines to stiffen its walls. In 218 BC Sinope stands free still, but it guards its peninsula knowing the kings have not forgotten it.